


Melt

by Tierfal



Series: Love Like Winter [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Angst, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 15:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A follow-up to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/396446/chapters/651822">Frozen Flame</a> in which new wounds are cut, old ones are mended, and loose ends are knotted up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melt

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, sequel sequel sequel! The alternative Mean Girls quote summary, as suggested by Eltea:
> 
>   
> 
> 
>  

“Do you have plans for the afternoon, Brother?” Al asks, so loudly that Colonel-Wait-General Domestic actually turns around to blink at him.

“Uh,” Ed says, halfway to his last sip of water, “not really.”

“Alfons and I are going to the Armstrong Institute,” Al says.

Ed still cannot believe this whole Armstrong-family-rebuilding-Liore-and-then-getting-bored-and-starting-a-center-of-alchemical-learning thing. He supposes they’ve probably been baffling the crap out of people for generations, so he shouldn’t be surprised.

“Are you?” Ed says, trying to figure out where this is going. “Well, have fun.”

Alfons startles out of his interest in his lunch, which is a dead giveaway that Al just kicked his ankle under the table. “Oh—we are planning to be there… a very long time.”

“Lots of interesting research to do,” Al says contentedly.

“Many… books… to read…”

“Armstrong-avoidance techniques to practice…”

“Forms for funds and granting—”

“I think you want ‘funding and grants.’”

“Yes, that.”

“Right,” Ed says slowly. “Well, like I said, I hope you guys have a good time.”

“We’ll probably just get dinner there,” Al says reflectively. “How late’s it open, Alfons?”

Alfons blinks innocently. “I believe nine-o’-clock, it closes?”

“Wow,” Al says. “Eight whole hours. I bet we’ll get some great work done.”

“I am certain,” Alfons says, nodding vigorously.

Ed clears his throat. “Like I said _twice_ , that’s fantastic.” He stands and picks up his dishes—carefully; he broke two of Roy’s drinking glasses last week, because he’s still adjusting to how much force he can exert with automail. Roy, who’s been leaning against the counter watching this whole pageant with his arms folded, snatches the dishes away and starts washing them before Ed can get to the sink. He has some thing about not wanting the automail to get rusted, and Ed has a thing about not wanting the automail to smell like rubber kitchen gloves, but right now Ed’s too busy eyeballing Al and Alfons to get into that argument again.

“Are you ready to go?” Al asks, gathering his dishes as well. To Roy’s credit, he steals Al’s just as fast.

Alfons nods again, intently, and Ed isn’t really sure whether he should be thanking them or smacking them one after the other with his metal hand. That probably depends on how this turns out.

“Let me get your coat, Alfons!” Al says delightedly, bounding for the front door. “And your bag! And your hat!”

Alfons pauses in the doorway of the kitchen to flash a smile and incline his head. “Thank you for the meal, General Mustang. Good afternoon; goodbye.”

“C’mon, Alfons!”

There’s a thunderous stampede of feet—which is rather remarkable given that it’s only just the two of them—and then the door slams, and the sudden silence makes Ed realize how close he’s standing to Roy’s elbow.

He takes a deep breath and employs the exhale to blow his hair off his forehead. “Well.”

“Subtlety incarnate, both of them,” Roy says.

They look at each other.

They look away.

It makes Ed want to throw things that they’re perfectly synchronized in their sidestepping. It’s just that—it’s just that there’s been so much to _do_ , so much to _re_ do, so much to reinstate and relearn and get accustomed to all over again. None of the four of them has lived in this place in years—or at least not in Central, for Al; or even civilization, as far as Roy is concerned. They’re all coming back from the fringes, and it’s hard work, and they’ve been busy at it.

And… the fact is, they’ve been rebuilding their interwoven lives as an admittedly pretty damn epic team, but that means that Ed and Roy haven’t really had a chance to be alone. So they haven’t really had a chance to talk. So they haven’t really had a chance to sort everything out. So the breath of indeterminate space between them is… awkward. And weird. And a little bit painful.

Ed picks at a thread on the cuff of his right sleeve and then rubs at the automail. “Hey, can we…”

“Talk?” Roy asks smoothly. “Or have filthy sex all over the kitchen right up until eight-fifty-nine?”

There’s something in Ed’s throat. It’s either his heart or a really big bug. “D-don’t f… forget… time to walk back.”

He risks a glance, and Roy’s watching him, eye half-lidded and hot, like all of the intensity of the lost one has poured into it now that it’s the only one he’s got. Roy catches him looking, of _course_ , and smiles. Ed feels like he’s stepping out onto a tightrope as he smiles back.

A tightrope over lava.

Lava with spikes.

Is it getting warm in here?

Roy’s eyelashes dip, and then his hand lifts and fits itself against Ed’s jaw. It’s funny, all the little things he’d forgotten—how warm Roy’s palms always are, the roughness of his fingertips, the _size_ of his hands, their weight, his compulsion to run the pad of his thumb over Ed’s cheekbone before he leans in for a kiss.

In four years, maybe it’s no surprise that time blurred out some of the details, and it put others into relief. And things have changed. And they’ve changed. And holy _hell_ , Roy still kisses like sex and heaven and dessert. The brush of the eyepatch on Ed’s face is a little strange, but ‘little _and_ strange’ was pretty much his unofficial title for all of the State Alchemist years, so he can handle that.

Begs a question, but questions can wait.

Ed fists both hands in the lapels of Roy’s shirt and pushes himself up on his toes for more leverage. God, he wants this. He’s wanted this so badly, for so long, so _much_ that it’s almost surreal to be getting it at last. He forced himself to stop thinking about it in Munich—stop thinking about the heat of Roy’s mouth, the pressure of his tongue, the sweep of his hands, the radiating warmth of his body so tantalizingly close. The connection that’s always been live-wire intense when they collide—the depth and immediacy of _everything_ Roy does, his responsiveness, his dizzying instincts for predicting _exactly_ what you want and when—the way he tilts your jaw so gently you let him, the way his tongue twists and presses and flicks, the way you swear to fucking everything you know that you can _feel_ sparks in his fingertips even when they’re bare…

Ed had to push it all away, in Alfons’s world, because it was lost, and gone, and the deprivation sometimes hurt so much it felt like a solid kick to the chest. There was no point pining, not when he had work to do, not when he _had_ to know if Al made it back, if everything was all right; not when he had to look after Alfons and parse the German translations of complicated scientific theories by low lamplight as his only lifeline in this universe breathed raggedly in a narrow bed. Not when he had to fight his way through every day, and wishing for what he couldn’t reach basically amounted to salting his own wounds.

Sometimes, though—at extremes, usually; when he was either entirely at peace and nostalgic, or when he was so broken he couldn’t make it worse and needed to believe it wasn’t a _dream_ —sometimes he’d let himself remember. Sometimes he’d take a little bit of solace in the particular way sheets used to rustle on Roy’s back, the way he’d bury his face in Ed’s neck after he came and just inhale, the way Ed would wake up to the insufferable tickle of the bastard’s mouth all over his ear. Like any other strong, visceral feeling, the bone-deep contentment of those moments was impossible to bring back, but turning the minutiae over and over in his hands dragged some of the warmth out from the void again.

Roy sucks gently on his lip, and Ed can feel him smirking before he draws a bit away.

“Why are you _thinking_ at a time like this?” Roy asks.

Ed gets a fair bit of sputtering in. His flesh knuckles are bone-white where his hand is clenched in Roy’s collar.

“We’ve only got eight hours, after all,” Roy says, leaning in to breathe humidly against his neck, strong hands ghosting down his sides. “…plus walking time.”

Did Ed just whimper? Aw, shit. He’s never going to live that down.

Roy laughs softly and starts nibbling on his ear. Weirdly, as Ed has discovered, trying to resist tickling in sexual situations is kind of erotic. He squirms and bites his tongue, and Roy’s hand curls around his hipbone tightly.

“Can we—” He hauls in a deep breath and tries to shove his voice back down to a normal register. “—not—the kitchen—when I’ve been abstinent for four fucking years?”

Roy’s fingertips graze the small of his back. The slow grin makes Ed’s guts smolder, and the very meaningful stroke of Roy’s thumb along the top hem of his slacks makes him shiver.

“Abstinent for four non-fucking years,” Roy says, “I think you’ll find.”

It’s funny how Ed has learned to swallow seven-thousand different kinds of injustice delivered in _German_ , but Roy Mustang gleeing in a lousy-ass pun makes him itch to beat the crap out of the bastard just as much now as it ever did when he was twelve and had authority issues the size of Aerugo.

Roy sees that in his expression and, very predictably, merely laughs. “Oh, don’t make that face at me. It slays me, Edward; you wouldn’t be so terribly cruel to an old, scarred soldier, would you?”

“If you’re campaigning for pity points,” Ed says, “I am hereby stamping ‘rejected’ on all of your application forms. You’re not even remotely old, dumbass.”

Roy hisses through his teeth. “ _Ooh_. Insubordination. You know what happens when my subordinates are insubordinate.”

“You play word-games with them until they either throttle you or beg for mercy? I’m in Category A.”

Roy sighs loudly.

Then he feints for Ed’s vulnerable ear, dives for his midsection, and wrangles Ed over his shoulder.

“ _Bastard_!” Ed howls loud enough to wake the dead, never mind alerting the neighbors. He flails mightily, but he remembers to be careful with the metal limbs. “Cease and desist! No! Stop! Bad Mustang! _Scheiße_ , put me _down_!”

That gets Roy’s attention.

And a snicker.

“Is the ground too far away, Edward?” Roy asks. “That must be terribly unfamiliar.”

“Shut up!” Ed says—rather uncreatively, he has to admit, but it’s kind of a challenge to writhe around convincingly without actually putting a metal toe through Roy’s bellybutton. “I can think of _so_ many better ways for you to be a dick right now.”

Roy licks his lips audibly. Somehow. The man can do unbelievable things with his mouth. “Is that so?” Here are the stairs. Damn it. Oof. “You see, it’s been a dreadfully long time, and I’m growing quite forgetful in my old age—maybe you should describe some of these _ways_ to me.”

Ed pounds his soft fist against Roy’s back and earns himself a faint wheeze. “Are you trying to get me to talk dirty when we’re literally ten feet from the bedroom?”

“Eleven at least,” Roy says. “And another two to the bed.”

Ed’s arms swing as Roy pivots on his heel, and Ed has a weird moment where he’s kind of glad the hall carpet hasn’t changed.

“This,” he says, “is dastardly.  This is the epitome of dastardliness.”

“What a sexy vocabulary you have,” Roy says, and then he sidles into the bedroom, bends down, and flips Ed—fairly gently, or he wouldn’t have gotten away with this stupid move the first time, let alone on too many successive occasions to number—onto the bed.  “I know how you can put that big mouth of yours to better use.”

Ed’s grinning, but his heart is pounding—it actually takes him a second to realize that this isn’t just _Awesome, sex time_ elevated heart-rate; this is… nerves.  This is nervousness.

For all that Roy is pretty much the worst boyfriend ever at _least_ two percent of the time and has an unhealthy carrying-his-partners-like-a-sack-of-flour fetish, he’s always been able to read Ed like a large-print book.  Every now and again, when Ed just wants to stew or think things over quietly by himself, that’s annoying, but most of the time it’s a godsend.

Roy settles on the edge of the bed and smoothes his hand gently up the side of Ed’s right thigh.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s _wrong_ ,” Ed manages despite the way all of the nerve endings in his pelvic region are now sparking and giggling and writing sonnets with crap rhymes for ‘Mustang’.  “It’s just… It’s been a really long time.  A _really_ long time.  Since… anything.”

Roy’s eyebrow lifts a little.  “You and Alfons didn’t—?”

Ed shakes his head.  “He’s way too shy.  And by the time we were really getting along, he was mostly bedridden.  And _jeez_ , General, he looks like my brother.” He doesn’t really want to ask the obvious question, because he’s kind of scared of the answer, but he has to at this point.  “You?”

Roy hesitates, and Ed’s not dumb enough to miss what that means.  Well—whatever.  He doesn’t care.  He probably would have taken some sexy comfort if it had been offered to _him_ , and Roy must’ve been pretty shocked and lonely after he disappeared without a trace, and there were probably even more nurses than usual throwing themselves all over him once he had the brooding wounded hero thing going on.  And that’s fine.  Roy’s always been really physical, and if it made him a little happier, then that’s okay.  Judging by Roy’s uncomfortable expression, Ed might even be able to get some retroactive apology chocolates out of the deal.

“Alphonse,” Roy says.

Huh?  “What about hi…” Lead-handed slap to the face. “Oh, no fucking _way_ —you did _not_ —” He’s up onto his knees on the mattress with two fistfuls of Roy’s shirt.  “You did _not_ sleep with _Al_ , or I swear to God I will fucking—”

What?  Kill him?  Hit him?  Dump him?

It’s just—in their own ways, they were each all Ed had.  Al was this fiery beacon of hope, this bastion of purpose, this seething undying immutable desperation to return and confirm; and a justification of everything he’d ever done besides.  If he’d succeeded in bringing Al back intact, he’d kept the one promise he’d ever truly committed to, and all else was forgiven.  But he had to be sure.  He was a scientist, after all; speculation wasn’t enough.

And Roy… had opened up this little door inside his chest that he hadn’t even noticed was there, and all of these crazy feelings had come pouring out, and Roy had held his hand and showed him how best to deal with all of them.  Roy’s the only person who’s ever undressed him slowly. Roy’s the only person who’s ever reintroduced him to every inch of his own skin.  Roy’s the only person who’s ever dissolved him into nothing but overwhelming animal joy and then stroked his hair as he wandered slowly back to humanity.

They’re both… his.  That’s the thing.  They both belong to him, sort of—not that he’d ever try to claim them or tie them down or expect them to _owe_ him something, but… He returned Al’s wonderful body—gave up everything for it, would have happily _died_ to do right by him.  And he gave Roy all the love he never knew he had, all the sex and sweat and murmured conversations and stupid little blushes that made the bastard smirk like nobody’s business.

But then… They’re people, aren’t they?  Both of them. They’re their own people.  That’s the whole point of all of it.  So what right does he have to feel betrayed?

Other than the obvious, so that’s where he takes refuge, and there’s where he plants his rage. “He’s _fifteen_ , and he’s my _brother_ , for fuck’s sake!”

Roy’s visible cheek is violently pink.  “It was just oral se—”

Ed’s grip on Roy’s collar is so tight he’s in danger of breaking the joints in his automail fingers—and in the flesh ones—but he can’t bring himself to care.  “‘ _Just_ ’—?”

“He could only see the two of you when he was dreaming—” Roy reaches up to clasp Ed’s wrists, and he jerks out of the way, leaving an extremely wrinkled shirt in his wake.

“Don’t change the fucking subject, you piece of—”

“I’m not,” Roy says, and to anyone who hadn’t seen him battlefield-calm and boardroom-“calm”, he’d seem collected.  This isn’t collected; this is conciliatory, and it’s not going to fucking work.  “He couldn’t get to sleep, and he kept insisting that he needed to—he was trying to figure out where you and Alfons were headed and when so that we could make the array on this side.  He’d already come on to me several times, so there wasn’t really any question of consent, and I gambled on the knowledge that you always used t—”

Ed cannot be hearing this.  Roy cannot be justifying this based on the shit _they_ used to do, in that settle-down-sweetie voice he’s perfected to use on stupid bimbos who think that just because he’s good-fucking-looking and a high-ranking officer, he can do no fucking _wrong_ —

Roy trailed off somewhere while Ed was seeing red and hearing nothing but the steam building in his ears.

“For what it’s worth,” the asshole piece of shit madman says quietly, “it worked, and he was glad of that.  I gather from his reactions that he enjoyed it, and I was—gentle.  I was very careful.”

They’re not talking about this.  They can’t be.  Ed covers his eyes with his left hand.  No, no, no fucking way.  Nope.  Not happening.

“Fuck you,” Ed says.  His voice sounds awfully weak; he wants to hit Roy hard enough to knock the other eye out onto the floor, but he can’t even move his hand away from where it’s shielding his face.  “You can’t fucking have it both ways.”

The silence throbs with his heartbeat. He’s shaking all over; he feels like he’s going to be sick. That’s not fair. After everything he’s done, after how far he’s come, after all that he’s given up without even asking for anything back—Roy can’t _do_ that to him.

“Why not?” Roy asks softly. “Why can’t I love both of you?”

Ed swallows what feels like a mix of acid and esophagus lining. It sounds so fucking petty even in his head— _because you were the first and only thing I ever wanted to keep to myself_.

“Fuck it,” Ed says, anchoring himself in the sounds that make up the words. “Never mind. You know what?”

“Edw—”

He half-shifts and half-rolls to dodge Roy and reach the edge of the bed, slides off, and starts for the door. “I’m just—going out. For a while. It’s fine.”

“Ed, please—”

Ed’s out in the hall; he’s down the stairs; he’s grabbing his coat and wedging his feet into the new boots (— _don’t have laces, Colonel; jeez, for somebody who’s supposed to be in love with me_ —) and out the front door and on the street and not feeling that inexplicable under-the-skin burn of holding back tears.

So fucking stupid. Maybe he should have figured, but it’s too late, so it doesn’t matter. Apparently everybody here still thinks he’s the same stupid punk who joined the military for the _money_ (seriously, who does that?) and assumes they can do whatever the hell they want to him.

News flash. He’s come a long fucking way in seven years. He doesn’t take shit from anybody anymore.

 

 

Alfons isn’t sure about this.

Al hands him a piece of chalk.  “Just try it.  What’s the worst that could happen?”

Ninety-eight seconds later (Alfons counted in his head), they’re bailing out of the study room in a billowing cloud of sulfur, upon which they slam the door with perfectly-synchronized desperation.  Then they both sink down against it, look at each other, and collapse into helpless laughter.

“Honestly,” Al says when he’s caught his breath, “it could’ve been worse.  I saw somebody try to use it in a marketplace once, and they ended up with sulfuric acid.”

Alfons winces.  “Is there… some way, perhaps, that we could transmute it again?  Pull the molecules out of the air; something like this?”

“What you’ve got must be sulfur dioxide,” Al says, “because if it was hydrogen sulfide, we’d probably already be dead.”

Alfons is entirely confused by the fact that alchemists seem to enjoy their trade.  Their trade, for its part, seems intent upon killing them all in terrible ways.

“I _think_ … I’m pretty sure I remember it’s soluble in water, and we’ll get—yeah, hydrogen sulfite and plain old hydrogen… except even with the Flame Array, we’d have to acceler—”

“Or perhaps we could open the window?” Alfons says.

Al looks slightly crestfallen.

“And… use the alchemy to bring new air into the room,” Alfons says.

Al brightens.  “Fifty cens says I can make a working fan out of objects that are already in the room.”

Alfons is living off of General Mustang’s charity until he feels prepared to enroll at the university.  Al is likewise, as they say, _broke_.  Alfons concludes that it must be the principle of the thing.

“I have much faith in your skill,” he says.  “Let us say—if you succeed, I will buy you an ice cream.”

Just like that, Al is forging back into the sulfur-stinking room with his sleeve held over his nose.

Unsurprisingly, Al is sketching madly by the time Alfons has buried his face satisfactorily in his elbow and tentatively moved inside.  Al is using an expensive-looking, complicated alchemical apparatus as a paperweight to secure the sheet for his array while his arm is raised to filter air to breathe, and he waggles his elbow at Alfons.

“Could you get me some cardboard and a couple wires and some plastic?  Doesn’t matter what shape.”

Alfons bustles around the well-supplied drawers that line the workbench against the wall and returns his acquisitions one at a time so that he won’t have to lower his own arm from his face.  Just as he’s done about the best he can for raw materials available in here, Al steps back from the latest sheet of paper, tugs it out from under the delicate device (which wobbles disconcertingly), smoothes out the wrinkles, and starts setting items on it from Alfons’s pile.

“Let’s see what happens,” Al says, and then he sucks in a deep breath, holds it, and presses both hands to his array.

It’s official.  Alchemists are unwell in the head.

They are also, however, miraculous every time.

Al considers his latest invention with a strange combination of unimpressed resignation and intense criticism, fingering its uneven corners and frowning at the slightly jagged base.  Then he flips the switch, and it works perfectly, and sulfurous air makes all of the papers flutter.  Alfons goes to the broad two-paned window and flings it open, gasping in a deep breath of clean air from outside.

Momentarily, they’ve cleared the worst of it, which merits a long, slow, conspirators’ grin.

“Okay,” Al says, perching on his stool again and folding his hands on the table.  Alfons settles across from him.  “This time, I’ll check your work _before_ I let you activate the array.  There’s something to be said for learning from mistakes, but mistakes like death by asphyxiation are kind of hard to evaluate academically after the fact.  Try it again?”

It’s difficult to refuse Al anything—somehow he’s much cuter than Alfons was at that age, despite how much they look alike.  Then again, Alfons supposes that, at Al’s age, he pretty much divided his time between dimly-lit laboratories and his bed, with occasional breaks to attend his classes; Al has mentioned—with the offhanded disinterest of one to whom such things are distressingly mundane—crossing deserts and trekking through blizzards.  Alchemy is, if nothing else, rather more hands-on and outdoorsy and unconfined than any science Alfons has ever explored.

Also, Alfons was terribly serious at that age, so he didn’t have that rather tantalizing gleam of mischief always darting in his eyes.

This time, Al muses over the uncertain lines of Alfons’s transmutation circle, hands it back, and grins while he waits.  This time, Alfons does not blow _anything_ up, or fill the room with somewhat-toxic gas, or leave rather deep scorch marks on the surface of the table.  This time, he creates a tiny little statue of a suit of armor—the kind he knows from castles and storybooks, not the kind Al has shown him in photographs.

“I’m so excited for when people realize we’ve crammed four alchemical geniuses into one house, and they start avoiding us in the streets,” Al says dreamily, admiring Alfons’s rough handiwork.

Oh, dear.  Is Alfons blushing at the compliment?  How odd.  Those Elrics just… they’re extraordinary in too many ways to number, and they do strange things to his cautious little heart.

For instance, making that heart pound madly as they burst through the door with such force that it ricochets off of the wall and leaves a dent.  Alfons’s first thought is that Ed could fix that in a moment, and his second is that Ed looks rather unlikely to do room repairs in his current state of towering fury.

Alfons gets a single second to wonder whether theirs was the first door Ed slammed open, or if there were some awkward apologies further down the line, and then Ed’s eyes have fixed on Al, and there isn’t much in the world outside of his anger.

“Tell me it’s not true,” Ed says, and there’s an uneven quality to his voice that’s terrifying.  He sounds like he used to when hospitals turned Alfons away—like he’s been brought to his knees by his own powerlessness, and it’s killing him to bend.

Al’s face is neutral, but as he gathers up a few sheets of paper and straightens them, Alfons can see that his hands are shaking ever so slightly.  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be slightly more specific than that, Brother.  Will you close the d—”

Ed flings it shut behind him; the window-frame rattles.

Al folds his hands tightly on the table, but his expression doesn’t change.  “What is it, Brother?”

Ed’s face is shifting through shades of hurt and rage like a kaleidoscope; rarely, _rarely_ has Alfons seen him so unhinged.  Never when someone’s life wasn’t in danger—never in a quiet room with four walls and three steadily-beating hearts.  Slowly Alfons pushes his chair back and stands.

“Ed,” he says gently, “did you and General Mustang have a… a row?”

Ed says nothing.  Al’s hands tighten, but his face looks like it’s made of stone.

“Tell me—” Ed’s voice is low and hot, prickling with pent energy. “—that that piece of _shit_ —” Alfons wonders for a moment if he’s dreaming; Ed _loves_ that man, like Alfons loves sunshine on the hills—instinctively, and so deeply that it fills his whole body and makes him feel as light as cool, clean country air.  “—didn’t hold you down and suck you off.  Tell me he’s full of shit, Al.  Tell me you’d never let him, and he’d never sink that low, and this is some kind of fucked-up prank everybody planned because I’ve been sulky or whatever, and it’s time to make me shake it off.”

Alfons is holding his breath, and over the harshness of Ed’s, he can hear as Al exhales in a soft, soft sigh.

Al looks at the table and prises his hands apart, and then he traces the wood grain with a fingertip for an agonizingly lengthy second and a half.

“He didn’t hold me down, Ed,” he whispers.  “It wasn’t like that.”

Blotches of pink ride high in Ed’s cheeks, and his eyes are almost spitting sparks.  “Just… What the _fuck_ , Al?”  It sounds like a plea more than anything else.  He’s still hoping for an explanation, for something rational, something he can measure and evaluate and understand.  _What a scientist,_ Alfons thinks; and then _Edward Elric, why do you insist on thinking you’re alone when everyone around you loves you so much?_

Al lifts his right shoulder in a half-shrug and glances towards the window.  “It was necessary so that I could track your progress to Hohenzollern.  To be honest, Brother, I practically forced him into it with that leverage.  To be very honest, I—liked it.  I’d never experienced anything quite like that before.  And anyway, it wasn’t… I mean, it wasn’t like I hadn’t been throwing myself at him at every opportunity up until that point.  I’d flat-out asked him to have sex with me two nights before.”

Ed sinks back against the door; his right hand flails around a little for something to lean on; instruments on the table by the doorframe tinkle.  “I don’t… get it, Al.  I don’t get why—”

“He was so lonely that anyone would have been adequate,” Al says, “and I wanted to know, for—for… someone else.  I wanted to have that kind of knowledge at my disposal, and he’s an expert, and—”

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘someone else’?” Ed asks, mustering a little more fire.

He doesn’t know.  If Alfons is being entirely truthful, that’s probably part of his charm.  Ed really does not know what he does to people, what he causes, what he inspires—that he walks into people’s lives, and he becomes the axis of the universe.

Al stands, and his hands are shaking obviously now as he collects a few of the papers and stuffs them into his bag.  “Never mind.  This is a stupid thing for you to fight with the General about; whatever did or didn’t happen out there, he lo—”

“Bullshit,” Ed says.  “You can have him.”

“I don’t want him,” Al says, meeting Ed’s eyes now, clenching his fists, raising his voice.

“Well, he wants you, obviously—”

Al stomps his foot with a fury that looks very small in the face of Ed’s.  “He does not!”

“Fuck you, Al,” Ed snarls, and Alfons expects him to take it back when Al’s face goes white and deeply wounded.  “He said so.  Happy now?  You win.  He’s yours.”

“I said I don’t _want_ him!” Al’s voice cracks, and pink flares in his cheeks, and his eyes gleam with the mounting desolation—and with a new hint of recklessness.

“Then what the fuck _do_ you want?” Ed asks.

Alfons knows both of them well enough by now.  This is it.

Al breathes shallowly for a moment, and then he half-sobs, and then he throws himself at Ed, flinging his arms around the uneven shoulders, and pushes their mouths together.

The room is completely silent for a moment—and then Al gasps, and Ed chokes, and there’s a flurry of movement, and Al’s sprawled on the floor, and Ed’s left hand is raised halfway to his mouth and hovering there shakily.

“What…” he says faintly.  “Wh…”  He finds his voice and anchors it the way he always does—in anger and expletives, because they’re safe.  “What the _fuck_ , Al?”

Al hangs his head, and his shoulders start trembling; Alfons can just make out the shine of the first trail running down his cheek.

Ed stands frozen by the door for another beat, then two, and then he makes a discontented noise in the back of his throat, scrubs his sleeve across his mouth, wrenches the door open, and slams it behind him again.

Alfons scrambles over to Al and presses a hand down on the quaking shoulder.  Al has always seemed like a little bird to him—sweet and flighty and bright, but fragile.  Brittle.  “Look at me?”Alfons says softly.

Al raises his head just enough to meet Alfons’s gaze.  The boy’s eyes are streaming now; he’s not making any effort to stop them.

“I am going to find him,” Alfons says, “and I am going to fix this.”  He brushes the unruly bangs aside and kisses Al’s forehead.  “That is a promise.”

Al makes a movement that is either a small nod or a combination of a shiver and a shrug, and ether way Alfons takes it as an affirmation.  He hugs the slender sparrow-boy tightly, and then he gets up and hurries after Ed.

The Armstrong family patriarch, who is observing the proceedings of quiet page-turning and muted conversation in the foyer library, notices Alfons and interprets his frantic, somewhat incoherent gesturing.  The man—what is that word everyone uses?— _sparkles_ a bit and points towards a side door.  Alfons inclines his head in gratitude and races out after Ed.

For all that his heart is slamming with a dizzying combination of physical exertion, adrenaline, and immense emotional fear; for all that he’s rushing and searching and alert; for all that he _must_ not lose his way in this huge, not-quite-familiar city right now… Alfons takes a moment to be absolutely overjoyed.

He can run again.

He’d given that up.

He’d let go of so many things, released his hopes of _ever_ doing them again—even after Ed’s magnificent work, the damage had been stalled but not undone, and a brisk walk stretched Alfons’s capabilities.

But it seems that the things he sacrificed to get here—Munich, rockets, his friends and coworkers (or the versions who know him), dreams and travel plans and the university and beautiful leather-bound books in lilting German—were traded for the things that this world gave back.

He can run again.

So he runs after Ed, giddy, panting, smiling even though he can still feel the sharp edge of Al’s heartbreak as if it’s his own.

There’s a figure off in the distance, plowing through a crowd—Ed’s wardrobe is rather subtler these days than it used to be, judging by the photographs, but he’s nonetheless unmistakable.  The vibrant yellow hair certainly doesn’t hurt.

Alfons gives chase, squirming through the cluster of market-goers as he reaches them, murmuring apologies and trying to keep his elbows tucked in.  He can just see Ed swinging around a corner into an alleyway—does he know he’s being followed?  It doesn’t matter.  He likely wants to be alone, but Alfons has to make this right.  He owes it to all three of them—all three of these wonderful people who have opened their arms and their hearts to him despite his difference.

After a few more turns, Ed’s silhouetted figure comes to a stop in the middle of a bridge that arcs over a sluggish river.  There was a bridge in Munich that he loved, not unlike this one—although it spanned the motorway, and automobiles scudded beneath it, not little waves.  When the recession was very bad, a woman with a large family jumped from that bridge.  Alfons never told Ed about that; he hid the newspaper with the article.

Ed has leaned his chest against the railing, and his arms are dangling over.  He’s cast his head down at an angle to watch the water move, and his hair hides his face.  Alfons approaches him cautiously and settles against the railing beside him, folding his arms on it and trying to read the curve of Ed’s back.

“Don’t judge me,” Ed mumbles after a minute and a half.

“I am not sure what you mean,” Alfons says slowly.  “I… do not blame you—is that the meaning?  But… he is still your brother, Ed, and he will always need you.  That is not his fault, nor is it yours.  You two are very much closer than most brothers are—emotionally, and intellectually, and in the way… that you touch one another.  You belong together.”

Ed scrubs his left hand over his face.  “But it’s not that—”

“It is that simple,” Alfons says.  “He is your family, Ed.  You love him.  He loves you.  You will take care of each other no matter what happens—this is such a small thing.  You have always spoken of Al like he is some kind of—of angel, or hope, or… revelation.  Surely he perceived you the same way, and when feeling returned to his body, that perception changed to suit it?  It is not so different from what you feel.  It is not wrong.  It is… Al.  You would give anything for Al.”

“Yeah,” Ed says miserably, “but…”  Alfons doesn’t interrupt.  One monologue in a foreign language is enough to keep him quiet for a little while.  “But I don’t—I mean, I’ve never—even thought—about _Al_ that way.  In my head, he’s still eleven with short hair and eyes so big you can barely see the rest of his face, and he complains that I always forget my laundry on the line outside, and he has to bring it in, and then he complains the whole time he’s folding it for me, and—” He buries his face in both hands this time, fingers curling into his hair.  “And y’know—that was what I was always envisioning when he was in the armor, even though I was visibly getting older, because—well, hell, he was _still_ doing my goddamn laundry, for starters.  So we were practically—well, people say _married_ , you know?  And then I get back here after so freaking long away, and he’s reverted and then grown and changed, and everything’s a tiny bit different, and he’s tall and has really shiny hair and _my old boyfriend is sucking him off_ and I’m just—”

Four seconds of silence tick by.  Ed pries his hands from his face, takes a very deep breath, and musters a weak smile.  “Confused.  I’m confused as fuck, Alfons.”

“That idiom does not make much sense,” Alfons says.

“I guess not,” Ed says.

Alfons pauses, and then he holds his arms out.  Ed rockets into the hug.

 

 

Roy waits in the entryway for five full minutes after the door slams.  Then he sits down on the stairs and waits another ten.  He didn’t expect to miss the miserable North, but there’s something to be said for the way that impassable weather conditions forced a body to rethink wandering outdoors.  In the North, Edward would be back inside the half-hour—probably with his automail ports aching so badly that Roy would just have to scoop him up in both arms and carry him straight to a hot bath—

Fuck.  Shit, fuck, damn, hell, _why_ did he—

But it’s better that he did, isn’t it?  It’s better that he tried to be honest, even if the endeavor spectacularly backfired?  Honesty is supposed to be what relationships are founded on, right?

Fuck.  Twenty minutes.  Edward could be on a train to Creta by now.

Roy gets up and drags his dumb ass to the kitchen.  He picks up the phone and dials.

“Hello?”

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” he says, but he knows he is, because it took her three rings to answer instead of two.

Riza pauses.  “What’s wrong, sir?”

They both know that means _What did you do?_

“I made a tactical error,” he says, “with the best of intentions, and Fullmetal… did a Fullmetal.”

“Give it to me straight, sir.”

“I told him I was in love with both of them.”

There is a silence long enough for him to feel the disapproval squiggling under his skin.

“I commend your intent,” Riza says, “but yes, that was perhaps not the wisest course of action.”

“Help me,” Roy says.

There’s a murmur from the other side of the line, and some soft noises.  “Second Lieutenant Ross says she has some input on the matter that might be of assistance, sir.”

Of course.  “Put her on.”

A muted thump as the receiver changes hands.  “General.”

“Given that I assume I’m about to owe you for a second personal favor, you’re welcome to call me Roy.”

“It’s quite all right, sir.  And I’m afraid I don’t have all that much to offer—just that the Elric brothers have never really experienced what I would call… _conventional_ love.  Ordinary affection, you know?  They had their mother, and then only each other, and then we all kind of adopted them en masse, but—do you see what I mean?  Love means something different to them.  It’s very much a bond, and a pledge.  It’s kind of sacred.  And… they’re scientists, first and foremost, so words aren’t quite the same as evidence.  If you want Edward to believe that you’re committed to him, you have to _prove_ it—does that make sense?  You have to prove that you’re not going to be one of those people who leaves or dies or changes your mind.”

Roy leans forward and presses his forehead to the wall.  She and Riza would hear if he slammed it right through the plaster like he wants to.  “So I should be… demonstrative?  Flowers?  Dinner?  Groveling?”

“I don’t think Edward is the flower type,” Ross says, and Roy _thinks_ he hears Riza snort in the background.  “But dinner would probably go a long way—if there’s a lot of it; there are _three_ teenaged boys living in your home now, correct?  And I wouldn’t say ‘groveling.’  Just… apologize, sincerely, and explain.  Edward’s awfully soft-hearted underneath it all.  That’s why he gets hurt so much.”

Well—yes—well—of _course_ , but—

“Besides,” Ross says, “if he didn’t care _very_ much, he wouldn’t be so upset.  He wants to forgive you, because he wants it to be all right.  You both have the same goal, sir.  You just have to earn it.”

Roy hasn’t been in the military for a fifteen years without learning to spot reductive rhetoric from a mile away, but he thinks Ross might just… have gotten the point.  Roy also hasn’t been in the military this long without realizing that knowing what you’re fighting for is half of the battle.

Roy draws a deep breath and releases it slowly.  “Thank you, Second Lieutenant.”

He can hear her smile.  “Certainly, sir.”

The telephone receiver changes hands again, and Riza’s voice asks, “Are you going to manage, sir?  Or will you need reinforcements?”

She’d be over in ten minutes with a bottle of wine and a chocolate bar if he even intimated the latter.

“I can do this,” Roy says.  He’s starting to hope he’s not even lying there.  “I appreciate the offer.  I’ll let you know if my efforts fail, or if Alphonse burns the house down to spite me, or if I’m going to have to cover up metal fist bruises on Monda—”

“Sir,” Riza says, “I have a great deal of faith in you.”

Funny how sometimes—a lot of times—that’s all he needs.

When he’s set the phone down, he peers into the refrigerator and assesses his options.  Second Lieutenant Ross was right about that, too; they’re going through an _incomprehensible_ quantity of food.  But he thinks he might just be able to eke out a few of Edward’s old favorites, and from there he might just be able to salvage all of this.

Soon after six, he’s up to his elbows in mashed potatoes when the front door opens and then closes again.  Not a slam—that’s promising, isn’t it?  Except that it could presage suppressed anger, slow-burn rage, resentment, passive-aggression—and that would be even worse.  That would be far worse.  That would be expecting to find dead spiders on his face when he woke up every morning.

He glances at the potato on his hands, at the gloves off on the other end of the counter, and at the long matches for the pair of significantly less showy alchemists to use to light the stove.  He picks up one of the gloves gingerly and strikes one of the matches against the side of the box—only hard enough for a few sparks, which are plenty to light all of the candles he collected from the secret stash in the basement.

There are footsteps in the entryway, and then low voices, and then silence, and then more footsteps, one set jogging up the stairs—the set that’s not quite even, the ka _tunk_ as pronounced now as it was when they first met, when Edward Elric was a streak of fiery potential with an ill-advisedly large mouth.

Alfons steps into the doorway to the kitchen, laying his hand against the frame, and looks at the half-assembled occasion within.

“I fed him ice cream,” the young man says in that curiously un-Elric-ly soft voice, “but I am sure he will still be very hungry.”

Roy nods stupidly.  Edward’s like that.

Alfons blinks his remarkable sky-blue eyes.  “He is in the library.  Would you like me perhaps to take care of…?”

“It’s mostly done,” Roy says.  “If you could just mix the garlic into the potatoes and… Oh, I suppose—” He touches the closest glove’s array again and snuffs out all of the candles.  “You don’t mind?”

Alfons smiles at him, warmly.  “General,” he says, “your kindnesses to me are more than I could ever repay.”

Roy hands the last few tasks off to him and starts to wonder what in the world they would do without Alfons—without the _physical_ scientist, the scientist of laws and numbers, the scientist who’s not a magician; without the young man who tuts over the way the rest of them sleep haphazardly and daydream wildly and push their bodies too hard most days; without the boy who has faced mortality not as a momentary glimpse on the battlefield, but as a familiar companion whose face and voice and mannerisms he knows so well that he wakes up smiling; without the small miracle who grounds the rest of them with his basic gratitude.

Roy takes the stairs slowly.  He swallows.  He moves his feet down the hall carpet and turns into the doorway.  He steps over the threshold.

Edward is sitting in the middle of the floor, bent over a book—hunched, really, small and kind of delicate, with the yellow rope hanging down his back and gleaming improbably as the sunlight fades.

He’s never played fair.  It’s neither his fault nor his intention, but that doesn’t make it bearable.

“Ed,” Roy says, “I’m sorry.  I was hoping that I could level with you, and we’d be on the same page, but I was vastly underestimating the significance of what I did.  I didn’t promise Alphonse anything except my help, but I made promises to you a long time ago—large ones, important ones, which I’ve broken.  I’m sorry for that.  I’m sorry to have hurt you.  I’m sorry to have put both of you into this posit—”

Edward swivels, eyes hot and bright.  “Wait a fucking second, where’s Al?”

Roy stumbles, mentally and almost literally.  “I… the last time I saw him was when he was leaving with Alfons.”

Edward is on his feet and pushing past; Alphonse’s photograph album lies open on the floor.  “Move your ass, Mustang—hey, Alfons!  Is Al still at the Institute, or what?”

And inside of five minutes, the stove burners have been extinguished, the food has been set aside, the boots are on, and they’re setting out for three different parts of Central as the night washes in.  They’re to meet back at the house in an hour, and if none of them has Alphonse in tow, they’ll be calling the police.

Roy should have asked for reinforcements.  At the very least, he could be drunk on wine and reminiscing right now.

 

 

Al steps into the telephone booth, carefully pulls the door shut behind him, consults the number again, thumbs a few cens into the slot, and dials.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice, tired, asks.

“Good evening,” Al says.  “I’m very sorry to call around dinnertime.  I’m afraid this is a bit awkward, but… I had an encounter with a mugger, and I—um—”  He peers out through the scratched glass at the man still writhing in the grip of a large hand made primarily of sidewalk.  “…apprehended him.  And he had a purse with him, and it had this telephone number inside.”

She goes from tired to delighted rather quickly, and Al feels a dull pulse of pride.  “You mean you found it?  Is everything still in it?”  As if he could know that.  “Oh, you sweet thing—I would hate to trouble you to bring it around so late—”

“That’s all right,” Al says.  “I wouldn’t mind.”  _I haven’t decided yet if I’m going home at all._   “Where in the city do you live?  I could meet you at a restaurant.”

She doesn’t sound paranoid enough to have even considered the prospect that he’s a cleverer con man, or a kidnapper, or—well, any of the numerous nefarious things he could be, drawing a woman out of her house under the cover of darkness.  She just sounds like she wants her bag back.

She specifies a place he believes he knows how to find, though, and then thanks him several more times and drops her phone back into the cradle.  Al considers, and then he goes over to the trapped would-be alchemist-assailant.

“The regular police don’t usually have alchemists on duty, do they?” he asks his captive, half-rhetorically.  This man would probably know all about the police’s habits, but Al doesn’t expect him to wax helpfully lyrical.

“You’re crazy!” is the only answer he gets, somewhat predictably.  “Holy shit!  What are you, twelve?”

Al frowns at him.  “I don’t want to add property damage to this situation.  Hmm.”  He goes back to the booth and dials the emergency number.  Hopefully their response time is fairly good; he wouldn’t want to keep the purse woman waiting.

When it becomes apparent that no one is in immediate danger, the estimated arrival time stretches.  Al gives up, repeats the address, thanks the operator, hangs up the phone, and crosses the street again.  He crouches down over the draining grate in the gutter, focuses, and makes one crude but serviceable cuff-manacle-thing rise up out of the edge of the iron.  It’s funny, he thinks as he reunites the giant cement hand with the rest of the pavement, how multiple clapping transmutations in sequence almost makes it seem like you’re applauding yourself.

The petty criminal that Al secures to the drain is most definitely not applauding.  Al decides the police can sort out the matter of whether to sever the cuff from the drain or just take the entire grate back to the station—they ought to be getting paid for _something_ —and heads off for his rendezvous, the lady’s bag swinging from his hand.

The woman standing in front of Kalando’s is younger than Al expected.  She has curly red hair tied back from her face, and she’s wearing, to Al’s surprise, a military uniform like Sheska’s.  She’s looking around everywhere, and she hesitates as she sees him approaching.

“Hi,” he says to break the silence.  “Sorry I’m late; the police were a pain.”  He holds out the purse.  “I’m afraid this is how it was when I found it—the guy didn’t seem to have anything else on him that was yours, but you can probably talk to the police tomorrow if there’s anything missing.”

She takes it—“Bless you, sweetie”—and immediately starts rummaging through.  Her lips are pressed together so tightly as she fishes out the wallet that he can almost hear her heart pounding; she snaps it open and ignores the fact that it doesn’t seem to contain any cash, instead flipping hastily through the little photograph protectors wedged into one side.  She stops upon reaching one and releases a breath as a soft sigh of relief.  Al tries not to look too curious, because it’s really none of his business, but she appears to catch him at it anyway.  Instead of being embarrassed, though, she smiles, rather sadly.

“My fiancé was deployed to Liore four years ago,” she says.  “Almost nobody came back, and there weren’t any bodies or—anything.”  She turns the wallet around to let him see the picture.  It shows her and a brown-haired young man with their arms around each other, looking very happy.  “This was the day before he left, and it’s… the only goodbye I’ve got.  I’ve been thinking for ages that I should keep it somewhere safer, but—I like feeling like I have him with me, you know?”  She pulls a face.  “Up until the point where some punk grabs my purse and runs off before I can get my gun out.  I really need to get back to the firing range these days.”

Al struggles to think of something to say—something other than _Oh, God, the Philosopher’s Stone_ , or _Oh, God, that was_ me _, and I took them, somehow, I took them all in, every single soul, and they were_ people—

“I’m—really sorry,” he says.

“Thank you,” she says, slipping the wallet back into the bag and shouldering it with a little smile.  “If life was easy, it wouldn’t be worth much, right?  I’m just glad you brought him back to me, sweetheart.”

She hugs him, and thanks him a few more times, and then he wanders off so that he won’t be watching creepily as she goes back to wherever she lives.  He wonders if the police are standing around staring at the man handcuffed to a storm drain.  He wonders how long ago Alfons found Brother and… what?  Pleaded with him to tolerate Al’s special kind of sickness?

He pushes his hands into his pockets and heads along the river walk for a while, his head down and his shoulders raised.  He can’t really sleep outside—not when there’s evidently a contingent of small-time criminals who would be happy to take advantage of him in a variety of ways, he’s sure.  He’ll have to find somewhere to go.  He could ask Mrs. Hughes, but he’d probably have to explain that he and Brother had had a disagreement, and with the best of intentions she’d probably call the General’s place and try to sort everything out and likely tangle it up worse.  Lieutenant Hawkeye would react the same way.  Maybe he should try… he thinks he remembers the address from a personnel form he wasn’t technically supposed to be reading, which the General shouldn’t have left out on the dining room table if it was confidential.

He rings the doorbell and then thinks maybe this was a stupid idea.

Havoc opens the door wearing a military-issue T-shirt and some distinctly non-military-issue sweatpants.  There’s a bit of a wave of tobacco-smell, but less than Al expected.

Havoc blinks.  “Whoa.  Hi, kiddo.  What can I do for you?  Is everything okay?”

Al takes a deep breath.  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir.  It’s just that Brother and I had a—a fight, and—it’s nothing serious—”  His throat is closing up fast; he has to hurry or he won’t be able to get the words out.  “—b-but I c-can’t go back there right n-now, and I was w-wondering if m-maybe—”

Havoc wraps him into a huge, tight, smoky hug and then hauls him inside.

“Hey,” Havoc says when he’s curled up on the squishy couch, nursing a mug of tea.  “Do I get to ask what you and the boss are fighting about, or is that confidential?”  Apparently Al’s face alone answers the question.  “No worries; I know all about that kind of thing!  Crap, kid, don’t look like that.  Can I call Mustang and make sure he knows you’re okay?”

Al thinks it over, breathing the steam from the tea.  Lieutenant Havoc will probably get in trouble if the General finds out about this later.  That’s not worth the small measure of privacy—besides, the General will probably think to call here before long.  “I… suppose.  Yes.”

Havoc tousles his hair—people _really_ seem to enjoy doing that—and then slips into the kitchen.  Al blows on the surface of the tea and listens to the little sounds: footfalls crossing the tile, stopping, then scuffing idly; the click of the receiver lifting, softer clicks to dial; faint rustling as Lieutenant Havoc shifts his weight.

“Hey, is that Alfons-the-cousin-from-way-out-West?  Yeah, this is Jean Havoc.  Al’s here, and he’s fine.  Needs to be alone for a little while, I think.  Do I need to feed him?”

Rarely has Al felt quite so much like a wayward puppy.

“Gotcha.  Okay.  Yeah.  No worries.  It’s really okay.  Really!  I don’t—oh, crap, you _are_ an Elric; you were about to make me say I don’t have a social life, and then you were going to laugh in my f… huh?  No, you don’t have to be sorry!  I was just kidding aro… Right, yeah.  Just give the General my regards, and… tell him not to kill me.  Or set my place on fire.  Or come in with guns blazing, or whatever it is he’ll want to do, probably.  Okay.  Cool.  Thanks a billion, Alfons.  G’night.”

Click.  Shuffle.  Creak.

“Uh…” Havoc says.

“Some things get lost in translation with Alfons,” Al says.  He hesitates, and then the words start to stick together and crumble at the edges.  “I am—I am really _very_ sorry to impose, and—I didn’t mean to coerce you like this—but I just didn’t—everywhere else—”

Havoc flops down next to him and throws a friendly arm around his shoulders.  “Ah, come on,” he says.  “I mean it, I’m glad you came by.  I was just going to stare at the water stains and feel sorry for myself all night.”  He hugs Al towards him with the looped arm and winks.  “Besides, it’s just sort of… cool seeing you like this.  All put back together and stuff.  I mean, it was hard _not_ to believe your brother the way he talked about doing the impossible like it was a _fact_ , but then… you.  Proof.  Bam.  ‘Impossible’ started to mean something different after that.”  He grins, lopsidedly.  It’s more than a bit charming.  “Plus you kids sure as fucking hell deserve some uncomplicated happiness by now, you know?”

Al knows.  Or he thought he did.  _Define ‘complicated,’_ he wants to say.  _Define ‘happiness.’  Define ‘deserve.’_

“Thank you,” he says, mustering a smile.

“Plus you’re a stud in training now,” Havoc says, cocking a finger-gun at him.  “You can be my wingman, buddy.  I’ll pick up the older chicks, and you pick up the younger ones, and we’ll go on double-da… Holy shit, what did I say?”

“It’s fine,” Al says, scrubbing with his sleeve at his stubbornly wet eyes before he gets tears in his tea.  “I’m s-sorry; I’m just t-tired, and—and w-worried that the General will be m-mad at you.”  He sniffles.  “And h-hungry.”

Havoc hugs him with both arms this time, and then he heaves himself up from the couch and hitches up his sweatpants.  “I regret to report that your dinner options are leftover pizza or leftover pizza.”

Al finds another smile for him.

 

 

Fuck Havoc’s door.  Ed will un-melt the lock later.  This is _not_ the kind of night where he’s going to fucking knock.

The door slams open nice and solidly, and Ed plants his feet and sets his face into his absolute _best_ scowl.

Except that Al… looks terrified.  Looks hurt.  Actually cowers away, like he expects Ed to hit him or something.

And then it’s all gone—all the anger floods out of Ed’s chest like hot air out of a punctured zeppelin, and he would know.  Without the anger, all that’s left is the worry, and the fear, and the utterly non-negotiable fact of his overpowering love for that dumb little brother on Havoc’s couch.

“Al,” he says, and his voice shakes, and it’s awful; “come on.  Come on home; asshole Mustang made a ton of food, but we just left it all there; everybody was freaking out until Alfons said he got the call, and—I mean—I was thinking—”

_I can’t lose you.  Take everything else away if you want; I can’t lose you, Alphonse.  I just_ can’t.

“I was thinking you’d gotten, I dunno, kidnapped, or some shit, or you’d absconded to Drachma, or you’d moved in with the cats at the shelter, or…”

Al’s eyes are gigantic.  Ed can see Al’s whole heart in them—and he can see his own face, reflected back.

“I was thinking,” Ed says, haltingly, “that… you… you being safe, you being… _you_ , Al—I was thinking that that’s the only thing that matters.”

He breaks the eye contact and looks down.  Havoc’s sitting on on the floor on the other side of the coffee table with an unlit cigarette sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and there are cards on the table.

“What’s… going on?” Ed manages.

“Eh,” Havoc says.  “He’s kicking my sorry ass at gin rummy.  I swear there isn’t any actual gin involved.  We had pizza; do you want some?”

“Nah,” Ed says.  “Thanks.  Al, I—I’m—sorry I—snapped at you.”  He raises his heavy arm and holds out his shaking hand.  “Do you… wanna come home?”

Al swallows.  He gets up from the couch.  He hesitates a second, and Ed’s heart drops and does this horrible splattering thing.  Except then Al musters a tiny little smile and moves forward and wraps his hand up in Ed’s, and everything is right with the world again.

The corners of Al’s mouth curve up a little higher, tentatively, as Ed squeezes his hand.  He turns back towards the room.

“Thank you very much for your hospitality, Lieutenant,” he says.

“Any time, kiddo,” Havoc says, grinning around the cigarette.  He puts his cards down in favor of a sloppy salute.  “Give the General my best.”

Ed’s chest tightens at the reminder.  There’s just too much today.  He’ll straight up lose it if he doesn’t face these things meticulously individually—one damn thing at a time.

“Sure thing,” he says, and if his voice sounds a little wooden, hopefully Havoc will attribute that to exhaustion.  Or awkwardness.  “Uh… let me fix your door real quick.”

When that’s out of the way, it’s only about ninety seconds before he and Al are alone on the sidewalk, wringing the crap out of each other’s hands.

“I mean it, though,” Ed says, looking at Al’s fingers where they’re tangled up with his—it’s been so long since Al had real hands, warm hands, hands that fit.  “You’re… the most important thing.  It’s hard to remember sometimes, but I really—I swore I’d give up anything.  And I would.  I did.  I still will, if you ask me to.”

Al grips his hand and smiles softly.  “You’re the only thing I want, Brother.”  He pauses, and he blinks his extremely thick eyelashes.  “And… perhaps something to eat other than Lieutenant Havoc’s three-day-old pizza.”

Ed can’t help grinning a little, and it feels good.  “Check and check.  C’mon, Alfons will have had time to make a whole rocket by now.”

Al clings to his hand like the cutest limpet in the universe—in either universe—all the way back to Roy’s place.  The longer they walk, the harder Ed’s heart pounds.  Sorting things out with Al?  Sure, they used to fight like hyperactive puppies when they were little, and the impulse to attack each other sometimes never quite left even when they’d taken up sparring instead.  Their tussles are nasty, but they’re short, and there’s never any real harm done.  Al is just… Al.  Alfons was right about that—they’re linked, permanently, and _tightly_ , no matter what.  They’re used to poking at each other, then snarling at each other, then fixing it again.  Usually they go from poking to snarling to fixing and right back to unadulterated love within about five minutes.

Roy, though.  Once upon a time, fighting was _all_ they ever did, because every single one of their interactions was a status battle that neither of them wanted to lose.  But then things were different—the tone of things, and both of their intents were different—and it was just about… playing, really.  Challenges that weren’t meant to be cruel.

And now things are different again.  And Ed’s not quite sure where anybody stands.

Al fishes his key out before Ed can even remember which pocket he put his into and lets them in.  Footsteps proceed from the kitchen, and Ed tenses.  Alfons emerges first and smiles.  Roy follows.  He looks—what?  Relieved?  Like he’s trying not to look relieved.  And kind of… hurt?

Fuck it.  Roy’s impossible.

But he was trying to apologize, wasn’t he?  Ed vaguely remembers words—nice words.  Roy’s good at nice words, pretty words, little glass words with shiny bows on top, so that they smash when you actually test them.

Whatever.  What-the-fuck-ever.  Ed doesn’t need that right now.

“Al’s hungry,” he says.

“Ergo you must be starving,” Roy says.

Ed glares at him.  He appears to ignore it.

Alfons is trying to monitor all of them at once.  He clears his throat.  “It should not be too difficult to warm the food again, yes?”

Roy starts into the kitchen.  “Easy.”

“Like some people,” Ed’s mouth says, and then it’s out there, and it’s way too late to take back.

Roy stops moving, and his shoulders tense until Ed thinks you could probably bounce cannonballs off of his back.

But then Roy steps forward, and the air’s still electric, but Ed’s not holding his breath anymore.

Needless to say, dinner is kind of awkward.  Ed goes very still every time somebody asks for the salt, because that’s the only way to eliminate _any_ possibility that his hand will knock Roy’s as they both reach for it.

Fortunately-or-something, Roy seems to be just as intent on avoiding eye contact as he is, so they kind of shuffle around each other, and Alfons tries to tell a story about sulfur and transmuting, and all Ed can think of to say is “You have to be careful with that stuff; I once almost poisoned a whole town.”  Alfons plucks helplessly at the hem of his napkin, and Al rolls his eyes.

Roy just… endures.  That’s almost certainly the word he’d use.  Like he’s some kind of martyr instead of some kind of slut.

Ed picks at the food.  It’s good, but his appetite escaped with his patience a little while back.  Maybe they’ll find his sanity somewhere.

When Alfons has given up on small-talk, Al has given up on raising eyebrows at everyone meaningfully, Roy has given up on pretending to eat, and Ed has given up on humanity, Roy starts sweeping all of the dishes off of the place settings.  Ed snatches his out of the way, shoves his chair back, and heads for the kitchen.

“You’re _both_ insufferable,” Al mutters.  Alfons merely sighs.

Ed’s got a sixth sense for Mustang, which is annoyingly touchy-feely considering.  He hunches his shoulders and then squares them as the bastard sidles up behind him where he’s standing at the sink.

Roy clears his throat.  “If you don’t want Miss Rockbell to throw tools at you, you really should use the gl—”

“I’m not using the fucking rubber gloves!” Ed snarls, turning just enough for a solid glare.  While he’s at it, he dives for the rest of the dishes.  “Let me—”

Roy swivels back on one heel.  “Edward—”

“ _Fucker_!”

“Will you stop cursing at me?”

“ _Bastard_!”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

Ed gets a grip on the stack of plates with his automail hand and jerks hard.  Predictably, Roy pulls back, he pulls harder, and everything goes crashing to the floor.  Instantly there’s a sea of broken ceramic and splattered food all around their feet, and they’re both standing there with their hands out like idiots.

They stand there for another, even stupider second of silence, staring at the mess so that they don’t have to look at each other.  Then Al storms in, crouches, and starts up a furious rhythm of hand-clapping and floor-smacking that sends all of the jittering fragments leaping back into plate shapes.

“You two—” Clap-smack.  “—stubborn _fools_ —” Clap-smack.  “—need to realize that this is only ever going to work—” Clap-smack.  “—if _all_ of us learn to compromise.”

“I don’t have any problems compromising,” Ed says, clenching his right fist on the counter.  “What I have a _problem_ with is people who pretend like they’re your goddamn savior and then turn around and tell you they seduced your little brother—but it’s okay, right, because they had to, and it was all for the plan, except wait, it _wasn’t_ , ’cause you’re apparently not enough, and they l—” His throat does a really weird thing that tastes like coffee grounds.  “—love him _too_.”

He chances a sideways glance at Roy’s feet.  The bastard says nothing, but his fingers curl in the sides of his trouser legs.

Al picks up the stack of plates, onto which he has corralled all of the spilled food, and slams it onto the counter—just too lightly to break it again, by the sound of things.

“So _what_?” Al says, facing Ed with eyes blazing.  He’s so… little.  Delicate.  Sweet-faced, soft-skinned, big-eyed and beautiful.  “If we couldn’t all love more than one person at a time, life would be extremely dull, and you and I would have just _withered_ and _died_ while we were separated, and Alfons wouldn’t be here, and the General wouldn’t have a whole team of people who’d follow him far beyond the ends of the Earth if he asked it.  Loving is what human beings _do_ , Ed.  Surely that was how you knew it was me inside that armor, when materially I was nothing but a smear on some steel—surely it was because of the way that I _loved_.”

“I’m sorry, Edward,” Roy says so quietly that Ed instinctively turns to look this time.  Mr. Suave Bastard is running a fingertip along the edge of the countertop.  Somehow he looks older and younger at the same time.  “I went so long with nothing that when I saw an opportunity to have everything, I jumped for it.  I didn’t think of what that would impose on you.  It wasn’t fair of me, and I want to mend it, if we can.”  He looks up, slowly.  Ed’s whole skeleton seems to be quivering, and he’s starting to wish he hadn’t eaten anything.  “Please,” Roy says.  “Let me be what you need.  For as long as I can be enough.”

“Were you even listening to me, General?” Al asks rather loudly.  “I said I love both of you, okay?  And you both love each other so much that sometimes you almost kill each other, which is great, but if we’re all going to be in this house together, we have to address the fact that it’s _bigger_ than that—life is, and loving people is.  I mean—” He swallows, and his eyes dart to the window, and he hesitates, but then he barrels on.  “I mean, _I_ love both of you, and—and if the General also loves me, and—and you do, Brother, in—whatever—whatever way is—appropriate—”

A dish smashes on the tiles, and all three of them start simultaneously and then turn.

Alfons has hefted a glass to follow, but he sets it aside when he sees that he has their attention.  He looks at each of them, and then he frowns.

“I love all of you,” he says.  “So can we please just fuck?”

If Ed were physically capable of shutting his mouth and twisting his head right now, he’s willing to bet Al and Roy would look every bit as dumbstruck as he does.

“What is it?” Alfons asks uncertainly, starting to look nervous now.  “Was that not the correct word?  I thought it was ‘fuck’.”  He blinks a little.  “Is it—it does not seem very complicated to me.  Think about it scientifically, yes?  Very simple.  Just—well, I suppose we might find it, what do you say, troublesome to arrange four people upon one mattress in a manner that is, what is the… _conducive_ to—”

Ed flattens out the tremor in his voice and directs his words at Roy.  “You have ten seconds before he starts engineering a better bed.”

“Then I suppose I had better hurry,” Roy says.

There isn’t time to ask.  Roy crosses the kitchen in three strides, cups Alfons’s face in both hands, and kisses him in the middle of the word _quadrangle_.

“Mmph!” Alfons says.  Then his hands lift to twist themselves in Roy’s collar.  “ _Mmmmph_.”

It’s definitely getting warm in here.  They really need to have the heating evaluated or something.  Maybe Ed should just stick his head in the refrigerator for a while.

Before he can tear his eyes away long enough to judge the distances to the radiator on the left wall and the fridge to his right, Roy and Alfons break apart, the latter gasping.  Just that’s enough to make Ed tense protectively, except then Alfons… laughs.

And hits Roy’s arm.

And looks at Ed and Al extremely meaningfully.

 

 

It’s been so long since Roy had a threesome that he expected a foursome inclusive of two virgins would be a bit of a challenge to negotiate.

Then again… Elrics.

Still, even the Elrics aren’t, as far as he knows, telepathic, which begs the question of how Alphonse learned how to do that _thing_ with his tongue given his minimal sexual experience.  Roy doesn’t even know how to do that _thing_.  Clearly the only solution to this enigma is a great deal of further observation.

Alfons was right about the difficulty of fitting four naked bodies onto a queen-sized bed, but Roy thinks they managed rather well considering the circumstances.  He hasn’t even quite caught his breath, and Alphonse is already passed out with one arm around Roy’s right leg and the other around Edward’s waist.  Edward has curled up with Roy’s right shoulder, and he’s been kind enough to move the automail arm mostly out of the way, but for occasionally reaching down to stroke Alphonse’s hair.  The flesh arm is currently angled across Roy’s stomach to pet idly at Alfons, who has face-planted on the sheets on Roy’s other side.

It’s official: Roy Mustang is the luckiest man alive.

Edward shifts a little, breath slanting down Roy’s chest.  “So… full disclosure.  When you said ‘Why can’t I love both of you,’ I didn’t realize you meant _at once_.  Plus Alfons.”

“Present,” Alfons mumbles into Roy’s ribs.  “ _Schläfrig_.”

“Then go to sleep,” Edward says, ruffling at his hair.

“ _Ja_ ,” Alfons mutters, and then he’s out like a light.

Sandwiched between Roy’s other side and Edward, Alphonse wriggles a bit.  “I really like sex,” he says.

Roy’s vocal cords seem to be malfunctioning.

“Good,” Edward says.  “We can have some more tomorrow.  Now get some sleep.”

Alphonse blinks his considerable eyes.  “I can’t believe you’re so bossy in bed.”

“Why not?” Edward asks.  “I’m just as bossy everywhere else.”

“Touché, Brother.”

“Now go to sleep.”

“Why, so you can have the General all to yourself?”

“I think I’m entitled.”

“Well, you’re not.  You’re just going to have to learn to share.”

At some point tonight—somewhere in between the shouting match in the kitchen and a number of shattered dishes—Roy died and bullshitted his way into heaven.  It’s the only possible explanation.

Edward sniffs. “Then _you’re_ just going to have to listen to our gross, mushy heart-to-heart.”

Roy may or may not be dead, but he can’t let that pass.  “I didn’t realize you were capable of having mushy heart-to-hearts.”

Edward shifts to dig a metal index finger into his side.  “We can do it talking, or we can do it with me tearing your ribcage open and pulling yours out.  Your choice.”

“ _Brother_ ,” Alphonse says, “that’s _disgusting_.”

“I told you it was gonna be gross,” Edward says.

Alfons mumbles something Roy doesn’t catch.

“What’d he say?” Alphonse asks.

“I think he’s dreaming about cake,” Edward says.

Roy gives that a moment to sink in.  “We had four-man marathon sex, and he’s dreaming about _cake_?”

Edward shrugs.  “They make some pretty damn good cake in Germany.”

Roy eyes him.  “Better than four-man marathon sex?”

Edward frowns contemplatively.  Roy despairs.

“Never mind,” Alphonse says.  “Will you two have your silly talk so we can all sleep so we can all have more sex tomorrow, with or without cake?”

Roy is about to take issue with that when Edward pokes his ribs with the steel fingertip again.

“Listen,” Edward says.  “I just… I really… need you.  Okay?  But—I mean, it sort of feels… uneven… if you don’t need me, too.”

“Equivalency?” Roy says.

Edward sighs.  “I guess so.  I don’t know—I’m not about to, like, care who pays for dinner or tally sexual favors or… whatever, but I just… I think part of why I freaked earlier was… feeling like you expanding your repertoire to my _fifteen-year-old brother_ meant you’d… moved on.”  He pauses.  “Also, I kind of hate the idea that—I dunno.  You two had something without me.  I mean, logically, that sounds good, because I love you both more than anything, so I want you to be happy—I do.  But it… hurt to think you could sort of… go on.  Like I was sort of cut off, and it didn’t matter, because you’d be fine with each other instead, and I didn’t really have to be there anymore.”

Roy turns that over for a moment, trying to make sure he’s heard and processed every word of it so that he can convey all of the deep love and towering desire and underlying respect as he formulates his response.

He opens his mouth.

Alphonse snorts.  “Brother, you’re so _dumb_ sometimes.  Everybody who’s ever met you either wanted to adopt you or elope with you.  You could keep taking trains until you got to the end of civilization and then walk until your automail gave out, and you’d never be unwanted.  Not that the General _or_ Alfons _or_ I is ever going to let you do that, but hypothetically speaking, it’s true.  And if you’d just open your eyes to how much people love you, you never would have had to ask.  So you’re dumb.”

There is a long silence.

“You have gotten _so_ uppity in four years,” Edward says, sounding slightly awed.  “I can’t believe Teacher let you talk like that.”

“I didn’t say that kind of thing in front of _Teacher_ ,” Alphonse says.  “She would have made me eat my own liver if I called her dumb.  And she wasn’t dumb, not like you are; she knew how to accept good things and just _appreciate_ them, and she knew that when they’re serious and real, you can rely on them forever.”

Roy clears his throat softly.  “While I don’t entirely agree with Alphonse’s choice of words—” The boy sighs as if he’s been woefully maligned.  “—I think he does have a point, Edward.  The pattern of your life has been alternating tragedy and sacrifice, over and over.” He reaches across to stroke the slightly damp bangs back from Edward’s forehead.  “But it’s not anymore.  I know better than most how it feels to be waiting constantly for the other shoe to fall, and after a while that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It’s not easy to let go of a _mode_ of living, but… This is genuine, Edward.  This is safe.  No one’s about to take it away.  And that’s a fact I think we’re all going to have to adjust to.”

Edward catches Roy’s hand with the flesh one and holds onto it.  His thumbs press into Roy’s palm for a moment.  “I want to see under the eyepatch.”

Something seizes in the middle of Roy’s chest, and the sudden coldness reminds him of the North.  “What?  Why?”

“You see my scars all the time,” Edward says.  “You’ve licked most of them.” Even in this position, Roy has to admit that that’s a pleasant reminder.  “Trust me as much as I trust you, okay?  Let me see yours.”

Damned scientists, overrunning Roy’s house, his bed, his heart.  Damned scientists, filling all three to the point of brimming over.  Damned scientists, with their indisputable logic and their vast, bright eyes.

“If you’re sure,” Roy says.  “It isn’t pretty.”

“Life isn’t,” Edward says.  “You know how long I’ve known that.”

The room seems very, very quiet as Roy shifts, reaches back, and draws the cord up over the back of his head.  He can’t help hesitating before he peels the patch away and holds it aside.

The bedclothes rustle as Edward half-rolls up onto his knees.  His hair drapes silkily against Roy’s jaw—which, now that he’s noticing it, feels remarkably tight.

Roy doesn’t look often, but he knows well enough what Edward’s seeing—a rough, ridged, white-knitted tangle of healed flesh, puckered and crisscrossed and caving in towards the absent center point.  A pit.  An emptiness. An ugly, ugly mark.

But it’s more than that—which Edward, of course, Edward more than anyone, will know.  It’s stopped making Roy’s stomach turn, but it’s still a catalogue of wrongs, an encyclopedia of past mistakes.  It’s a chronicle of his failures.  And it’s difficult to put that on display.

In times long since passed, Roy had been irresistible for many reasons.  Primary among them was the fact that he was an inimitable physical specimen—“perfect” is much too subjective a word, but he was polished, unblemished, and extremely fine.  It’s not immodest to acknowledge that; on the contrary, he attributes much of his success in every venue of his life then to his sleek external aspect.  People respond well to attractiveness.  It’s a fact.  He used it.  He profited.

He could have used this, if he wanted—this damaged but still serviceable form.  He could have played the eyepatch up as dashing, or fished for pity, or worked the brooding antihero persona until women swooned and begged to see him in swirling dark cloaks all the time.  He could have made the broken puppet act all kinds of parts.

But it would have been fake.

Falseness is one thing; to mislead on occasion is a necessity of his life and always has been; twisting the truth is often called for; masks are imperative.  But when Roy took up with Edward—took hold of him, took root, took refuge—he stopped lying to _himself_ , for that precious little while. And afterwards, aching as he was for any comfort in the world, it seemed impossible to start again.  It would have amounted to spitting on what they’d had.  It would have meant tainting the purest thing he’d ever been given, sullying the memories, squandering their warmth.

With Edward, he’d discovered an entirely new kind of wholeness, and an entirely new kind of happiness.  With Edward, he’d been able to be _all_ of himself—all of the darkness, all of the anger, all of the regret, all of the scars.  With Edward, he’d been complete, because he’d been completely understood.

“You know what they say.”  Leaning over him here, now, Edward tilts his head with a grin, watching Roy’s eyebrow rise.  “About what doesn’t kill you.”

“Makes you sexier,” Alphonse puts in.

Edward looks momentarily pained.  “Jesus Christ, was I this insanely horny when I was fifteen?”

“Yes,” Roy says.

Instead of rising to that, Edward goes quiet again, running his flesh thumb around the perimeter of Roy’s eye socket, his thoughtful gaze trained on the mess of ragged maggot-white within.  Then he traces his fingertip along a paler, thinner mark on Roy’s cheekbone—an older scar that gets covered with the rest.

“This one’s mine,” Edward says slowly. “Sort of.  I think I claimed it.”

Roy finds a smile for that. “Suffice to say that your reaction was more memorable than the car accident itself.”

Edward curls up with his face pressed to Roy’s neck and reaches down to tousle Alphonse’s hair.  “We’re all kind of busted up, aren’t we?  One way or another.”

“One way or another,” Roy says.  “But I think that’s why we all fit.”

“ _Nein_ ,” Alfons mutters.  “It is good engineering, is why.”

“This is getting way too schmaltzy,” Edward says, voice trembling with the faintest hint of tears.  “All of you idiots go to sleep.”

“Yes, Major,” Roy says.

“I love you, too, Brother,” Alphonse says.

“You are not so proficient at listening to your own advice, Ed,” Alfons says.

“Goodnight,” Edward says loudly, and he curls up with Roy’s shoulder and pointedly shuts his eyes.

Roy could die happy tonight. He’d really rather not, given the prospect of waking up with lazy late-morning sunlight painted along the beautiful naked bodies draped all over his person; given the subsequent prospect of a chaotic shared breakfast and, if he’s _very_ lucky, an equally chaotic shared shower; given the greater prospect of this kind of overpowering joy being _permanent_ —but he could. And that says a lot about who he is, what he’s done, and how far he’s come.

It says that he’s come home.


End file.
